


Rules

by ZiGraves



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Bad Things Happen To Carlos, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-16
Updated: 2013-09-16
Packaged: 2017-12-26 19:42:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/969564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZiGraves/pseuds/ZiGraves
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rules are a prevalent part of Night Vale. </p>
<p>Sometimes it is their unexpected presence which is so important, and other times it is their very sudden absence which becomes more urgently of note.</p>
<p>But always, always, the rules are to be obeyed. This goes for visiting scientists just as much as full residents.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rules

**Author's Note:**

> If there are any tags you feel I missed or should include, please let me know in the comments. I'm thinking of adding this to a couple of my other fics so far and just titling the lot of them the "Bad Things Happen To Carlos" series.

Rules are a prevalent part of Night Vale.

Sometimes it is their unexpected presence which is so important, and other times it is their very sudden absence which becomes more urgently of note.

Carlos, as a scientist, has a particular love of rules. He knows many of the rules of biology and how to circumvent those, and the rules of proper lab usage and how to circumvent those, and the rules of etiquette on getting grant funding, and all sorts of ways to circumvent those.

Night Vale, with its shifting rules and creative approach to paperwork, is by far the most interesting set of rules he’s ever had to work around. It is better even than the rules for the Bodleian Library, which were many and Byzantine in both the literal and metaphorical senses of the word.

\----

“It’s not a writing implement! It’s a-a-a ritual inscription tool! I need it!”

“Sorry, sir,” said the Secret Policeperson again, a trifle less patiently, hand still closed over one end of the lovely chased silver fountain pen that Carlos refused to relinquish. “It’s classed as a writing implement. It’s clearly a pen.”

“This is a special pen. This pen was given to me upon my completion of my doctorate, and furthermore this is the pen I use to make all the necessary notes in science. It is a ritual implement, and your own rules clearly state that traditional ritual implements are allowed providing they are used only in the completion of said rituals! Paragraph 62, subsection B!”

Carlos waved the vellum-printed copy of the latest bans, allowances and warnings.

“It’s just a pen, and it is illegal. Please, sir, do co-operate or we will have to send you for re-education despite your visiting visa status.”

The warning didn’t seem to take. Carlos’ voice ran higher and more frenzied, and he jabbed the ritual inscription exemption clause again.

“Oh? Oh, really now? I can do science without a bloodstone circle, but I cannot do science without this pen! My scientific rituals will be incomplete, unfinished and impossible without this pen! The note-taking is an essential part of it, and without the note-taking and later the full writing up and amalgamation of the notes, then all effort is as nothing and my profession rendered void! Per the rules, part two of subsection B of paragraph 62, it’s very clearly marked that the removal of such tools as well render a ritual ineffective and null is prohibited.” Carlos made another sudden grab for the fountain pen, nearly succeeding. “It. Is. My. Pen.”

The Secret Policeperson sighed, watched him for a few moments more as he quivered with the pamphlet of regulations held defensively at the exact height of his throat, and relinquished the pen.

“Thank you.”

The Policeperson’s gaze was unwavering.

“Sir. You may be able to wave the rules at us now, but know this; the rules may change. And when they do, we will know before you do. Have a nice day, sir.”

The polite and heavily armoured thug made a smart about-turn and marched off, turning left and vanishing after a few paces. There didn’t seem to have been anything to vanish into or behind, and Carlos noted all this down with great enthusiasm using his freshly returned and strictly legal pen.

\---

Through a combination of a carefully monitored live feed from City Hall and his close relationship with Cecil, Carlos managed to keep abreast of most rules before he could be caught out. The relationship between himself and the Sheriff’s Secret Police grew steadily more adversarial, even while his continued freedom from re-education and brainwashing left him free to grow increasingly close to Cecil.

As with any careful dance between following and bending the rules, it was a very fine line to tread.

And then Carlos slipped.

He did not know what he slipped on, or how. He did not know how long he spent in that small, dark bunker, hateful HBO blaring from a screen that covered one wall, the noise and light on full blast and impossible to avoid, impossible to sleep or pass out through, until he was left sobbing and begging for a moment’s respite. He did not know when he misstepped, and they would not tell him.

Reality blurred in the tender care of the Secret Police, memories overlaid with fantasy and nightmare, impossible to find the line where one began and the other ended when Night Vale made every horror so real, so likely, so common.

He did not know when it was they let him out, or how he got home.

Was it home?

It was Cecil’s flat. It might have been home. He had memories of moving in with Cecil, but he also had memories of vivisecting Cecil and memories of Cecil moving in with him and memories of Cecil leaving him. He wasn’t sure which ones were real, at this point, though he thought the vivisection was probably unlikely.

Carlos sat quite still on the doormat until Cecil got home.

For a very long moment, he thought that Cecil did not recognise him. Or that he had been made to associate the name Cecil with someone else. Certainly the Secret Police had seemed vindictive enough to do that, making clear their distaste for outsiders who thought they knew the rules better than locals.

Cecil said nothing as he scooped Carlos up, closing the door quickly behind them and locking it more securely than Carlos remembered. Thought he remembered. Might have remembered?

He wasn’t quite sure what language Cecil was cooing to him, radio-soft, in as he was gently deposited in the bath and warm water started to run. Not English, he was pretty sure, he knew English intimately well from the hours of screaming, deafening, blinding, ear-bleeding HBO pumped into his tiny little cell. He wanted to revert to Portuguese, but he didn’t think Cecil knew that one, so he sat and shivered in the steaming water as Cecil patiently scrubbed away the scabbed remains of blood and other things.

When had he started shivering?

It grew worse, until Cecil dropped the sponge in the clouded water and held Carlos tight, regardless of the soap and blood. Carlos found himself returning the grip, viselike, his hands digging into Cecil’s arms though he didn’t mean to, couldn’t quite them to loosen, couldn’t make himself let go.

He thought that was probably a reasonable, normal response and not something the Secret Police had imbued him with, though he mouthed apologies in a handful of scrambled languages all the same. He could feel the bruises developing under his fingertips, but could not pry them free.

As his shaking abated, Carlos noticed that Cecil had picked it up instead.

“Cecil?”

Cecil’s arms tightened and Carlos felt new bruises of his own developing, but good bruises, wanted bruises. Cecil’s shudders abated into choked gasps, and Carlos realised at last that he’d been crying.

“Cecil.” The word fit. “ _I’m sorry-_ ” No. No, Cecil knew Russian and Spanish and Modified Sumerian, not Portuguese. English. He knew English. Carlos tried again. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Are you all right?”

“They wouldn’t say what happened.”

Cecil’s voice held that horrible, broken quality that Carlos had only heard once before, in a late night replay of an earlier broadcast.

“They wouldn’t say what happened. It’s not election season so you couldn’t have been collateral for proper voting and even if it was they always leave a note when it’s that, but they didn’t leave a note and none of your things were gone not even your favourite labcoat and when they take someone they always take a change of clothes unless it’s…” He trailed off, and Carlos was reminded of that broadcast, of Cecil alone in a recording booth with a little handmade trophy. He was sure that had been real. Cecil sniffed. “It’s been two weeks. I thought you were dead.”

Carlos found his hands had loosened their deathgrip at some point, lax enough that he could move them. He wrapped an arm around Cecil and stroked the other through his hair, petting and reassuring, and oddly reassured in turn by the realness of it, the very tactility and sensory realness of Cecil.

“I’m not dead. I’m sorry. I’m here.”

Carlos shivered, an abrupt and unexpected movement, and it took a few seconds for him to find the source of it. It wasn’t fear, or terror, or nausea, or adrenal shock. Cold! That was it. Cold. The water was getting cold because he’d been sitting in it for so long. He felt proud of himself for isolating the key contributing factor to his involuntary muscle spasm.

“Cecil? I’m cold.” He was giddy with the revelation that he was merely cold and not shuddering under the threat of pain. “Cold, haha! I love it. Cold. Al-although, s-scientifically there’s no such thing as cold, it’s j-just the absence of h-heat. C-cold. M-marvellous. Actually. M-might be shock as w-well. Think I’m r-r-rambling. Cecil. S-sorry. Shock. Cold. B-both?”

Cecil got a hand free as Carlos rambled, clawing for a towel and dragging Carlos up out of the rapidly cooling water to rub him down and dry him off as he stood there, shivering and chattering and trying to fight off something that was possibly cold or possibly delayed shock, or possibly both. The shivering abated gradually, until Carlos was left standing in the bathroom wearing a towel clutched around his shoulders and staring owlishly at Cecil, whose eyes were red-rimmed and underlined with black, sleepless bags.

“Cecil? What time is it?”

“Late,” Cecil managed, a watery smile attempting to make itself present. Carlos took this in and nodded with great solemnity.

“Should go to bed, then. I can’t-” Carlos stumbled forward and clutched at Cecil again, anchoring himself to something definitely real and tangible. “I can’t remember if I moved in with you. Or you with me. Or if you left me. I’m sorry. I know it was one of those. Could you lend me some pajamas, please? I don’t know if I have anything here.”

Cecil sniffled again and looked like he’d weep. Helpless, Carlos reached up instinctively to try and pet and soothe in apology, hands on Cecil’s face and through his hair.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he said, the words ringing useless. “I didn’t mean to. Cecil, I’m sorry, what happened?”

Cecil gulped back the brimming redness in his eyes and shook his head, guiding Carlos out of the bathroom.

“You didn’t move in. You were going to, but… they…” He made a vague, sinister gesture that Carlos immediately understood in a way he hadn’t understood anything at all since landing up on Cecil’s doorstep. He curled in closer against Cecil in response, shambling through the hall and bedroom doorway together. He recognised his pajamas on the pillow by the reading lamp.

His pajamas?

Probably his pajamas.

Yes. His pajamas, confirmed when Cecil admitted to leaving them there on the bed because he couldn’t bear to put them away.

The fabric was soft, and smelled like Cecil, though Cecil swore blind they still definitely had something of Carlos to them, and Carlos wasn’t going to argue. Cecil got changed with him, and left the light on dim when Carlos flinched and whimpered at the darkness, and held him as close as possible even with all that fabric between them.

After a while of staring blankly at the drawn curtains, Cecil warm against his back, Carlos turned over. It was a new thrill of terror to leave his back exposed, even with Cecil’s arms around him, but he turned over and he stayed over, looking up into Cecil’s unsleeping eyes.

“Thank you,” he whispered, and leaned up to kiss the still and watchful face. It disintegrated.

The high keening noise woke the neighbours, and Cecil couldn’t calm him down for hours after that, not with explanations of hallucinations or waking nightmares or the perfectly normal aftermath of massive physical and mental trauma.

Carlos apologised for the fuss in a tired, lucid state the next morning, shortly before collapsing of exhaustion and finally falling asleep.

It took several days for him to claw his way back to anything like normality, getting his things moved into Cecil’s apartment as he’d been assured - and as his own emails and text attested - was the original plan.

Nearly a week after that he was starting back to work.

He worked out what it was that had been the topic of his re-education a few more days after that, when a fellow scientist found him curled into a small, tight, terrified, screaming ball and apparently trapped in a corner by a rogue ballpoint pen that had rolled out from under a cabinet.

There was a neatly printed note sellotaped to it.

_Subsection B has been amended_.


End file.
